As Part Of My Pgce Early Education, I Have Been Instructed

As part of my PGCE Early Education, I have been instructed to conduct an assignment based on my own philosophy of teaching in Early Years settings. Farquhar and White (2014: 821) highlight the importance of early education as the ‘theory and practice of educating young children’, which is deeply rooted in the philosophy of the practitioner as they have a repertoire of strategies to teaching and learning. King and Howard (2016) believe that philosophy and pedagogy are connected as a way of supporting young children. The reason I am writing to you today is because I believe the Early Years Statutory Guidelines (DfE, 2017) for the development and learning of children under statutory school age in England,†¦show more content†¦Consequently, children would benefit from exploring their environment through free-flow play where they are able to select their own learning having no adult intrusion or direction. These terms are supported by the United Nations Convention an d the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as their research shows that allowing choice is characteristic of play, where children value freedom from structure by making their own choices and having time to themselves (United Nations, 1989). Frustratingly, the curriculum that is released from your government is having an impact on early education as you continuously push for school-testing and assessments, causing a unique child-centred education to change into preparing our early years children for school (Bradbury, 2012; Moss, 2012). Smail (2014) stresses that by valuing the experiences of the children they will be valued as a person, rather than a child in a government run assessment game. Rogers (2013) also supports this statement, as he argues that play has become increasingly imperative to improve adult-determined outcomes, rather than considering the aspects children find important (Northared et al, 2015). (Need to expand on the points I am trying to make here). Scaffolding In England and Australia, we have traditionally focused on allowing